The Space Between Our Hands
by Scrawlers
Summary: The best kind of intimacy—the richest kind—is that which isn't planned, isn't extravagant, isn't explicit. The best intimacy, both physical and emotional, is that which comes as a natural result from a relationship that is, above all else, love in every sense of the word. [Wishshipping fic collection]
1. one wearing the other's clothing

**Notes:** This is a fic collection spawned from a "non-sexual acts of intimacy" prompt list I found on tumblr, with each fic taking place at a random point in Yuugi and Jounouchi's lives (and therefore, relationship). In my version of events, Yuugi and Jounouchi don't become a romantic couple until they're around 23/24, so a good number of these will take place before they've realized their feelings and decided to make their relationship explicitly romantic. Despite this, I consider this to be a Wishshipping collection anyway, since every moment that happens in these fics is just another stepping stone to their relationship reaching that point. I'll note the prompt that I've filled in the chapter dropdown list (so if there is one that interests you more than the rest, you can skip to it since these don't go in chronological order), with the actual title of the ficlet being noted in the header to the fic itself.

With all of that said, this first one takes place when they're about 22/23, and living in their shared apartment near Yuugi's university. And as a final note specific to this one, the "nicknames" seen later in this chapter aren't really nicknames in the sense that neither of them would say them out loud. Since he was hurry, Yuugi just wrote the first character of each of their names (in kanji) rather than the whole thing.

Anyway, that's enough of that. If you read this, please review it.

* * *

The Space Between Our Hands

 **One: Something Borrowed**

* * *

At this point in his life, Yuugi had gotten fairly decent at keeping up with most household chores. He and Jounouchi had a good system worked out for keeping the dishes clean, Yuugi was good at paying attention to when it was his turn to vacuum and sweep the floors, and they were both pretty good at making sure the trash cans stayed relatively empty. But if there was one chore that Yuugi just could not bring himself to complete with any sort of decent regularity, it was laundry.

It was ridiculous, he knew, because his "schedule" for laundry meant that he was always dragging a laundry bag loaded with two thirds of his weight in clothes to and from the laundromat every couple of weeks, and it also meant that he was usually scrambling in the very depths of his closet to find something to wear when he inevitably ran out of clothes. (Of course, Jounouchi's method of wearing the same pants for a week was a useful one in situations like this, but even that method had its limits.) But no matter how painful the consequences were, Yuugi _hated_ doing laundry. He _hated_ it. At least when it came to loading the dishwasher he could make something of a game of it by trying to find a pattern that would let him cram in as many dishes as possible. There was only so much fun to be had sorting laundry, and at this point in his life, Yuugi was pretty sure he'd exhausted it all.

But that left him with the problem he faced today. Yuugi picked a long sleeved shirt off the top of his laundry hamper, sniffed it, and then dropped it back with a disgruntled sigh. All of his long sleeved shirts and sweaters were dirty. _All_ of them. He still had t-shirts and sleeveless tops, but while the winter frost hadn't completely set in, the autumn air was cold enough that he knew he was in for a bad time if he went out in just a t-shirt under his jacket. He needed something warmer, but he'd put off doing his laundry for so long that he had _nothing_ . . .

Yuugi glanced at his window, through which he could see the no doubt chilly wind whipping through the trees just outside, and sighed again. There was nothing for it. He was just going to have to tough it out.

Thoroughly regretting every decision that had led to him procrastinating his laundry for so long, Yuugi pulled on a fresh t-shirt before he grabbed his laptop case off his desk chair. He could do this, he told himself. He would still have his jacket. He might freeze halfway to death on the way to school, but he wouldn't freeze completely. He could do it.

In lieu of a coat rack or wall hooks, Yuugi and Jounouchi draped their jackets and hoodies across the furniture in their living room and kitchen. The tables were off-limits, since they needed to eat off those, and the television was off-limits because they needed to be able to see the screen. But anything that could be sat on was fair game for a coat, jacket, or hooded sweatshirt.

Case in point, when he stepped out of his room Yuugi saw that he had tossed his jacket over the back of the living room chair the previous day, and that Jounouchi had left one of his pullover hoodies thrown over the arm of the couch. He had been planning to go straight for his jacket before he slipped on his shoes and left, but when his eyes fell on the hoodie that Jounouchi had left behind, he paused.

Jounouchi, he was pretty sure, was sleeping. He had worked an overnight the previous night, and it was only six in the morning (a horrible hour, in Yuugi's opinion, and he cursed his professors for setting morning classes just as much as he cursed himself for procrastinating on doing his laundry). By the time he woke up, Yuugi would already be gone to class. Yuugi didn't know if Jounouchi had anywhere to be today—it was his day off, Yuugi thought, but he couldn't be positive—but even if he did, there were always other hoodies . . .

Yuugi crossed the room to the couch, put his laptop case on the floor, and then grabbed the hoodie off the couch.

It was dark green and super soft, probably because of how well-worn it was. It smelled strongly of Jounouchi when Yuugi pulled it over his head—a combination of the "ocean" scented body wash he used, and the laundry detergent they shared. The hoodie was far too big for Yuugi; the sleeves fell past his hands and the bottom of the hoodie nearly reached his knees, probably because Jounouchi always liked to buy his hoodies a size up from what he needed. It was almost funny how huge it was, but mostly it was comfortable and warm. Yuugi grinned as he pulled the sleeves up so that he could swipe the notepad and pen they used to leave notes for each other off the counter. Jounouchi wouldn't care that Yuugi was borrowing his sweatshirt, Yuugi knew, but he scrawled a quick note anyway:

' _Jou —_

 _Borrowed your hoodie, hope you don't mind. Coffee should be ready when you wake up._

— _Yuu'_

Yuugi set the note on the arm of the couch where the hoodie had been, and then darted into the kitchen to set the coffee to brew, as promised. At the very least, even if Jounouchi _did_ care that Yuugi had borrowed his hoodie for whatever reason, he'd have some morning coffee to cheer him up.

As he grabbed his laptop case and headed for the front door again, Yuugi eyed his jacket. The smart thing to do would be to pull it on over the hoodie, to make extra sure that the dreaded cold couldn't freeze him on his way to school. But no, he thought, as he slipped on his shoes, he didn't need it. Jounouchi's oversized hoodie was bound to keep him warm enough, no doubt about it.

Yuugi grabbed his keys off the TV stand, pulled the hood up to protect his ears from the autumn wind, and then headed off to school.


	2. one playing with the other's hair

**Notes:** This one takes place a little before the last one, chronologically, when Jounouchi and Yuugi are 20/21 (and as such, again, after they've moved in together but before they're romantically involved).

Jounouchi's attitude here will make a bit more sense if you've read other fics of mine and/or are familiar with my headcanons concerning his past and his relationship with Hirutani, but the basic idea here is that when you only ever receive attention like this from one source previously, and that one source is negative, it tends to make your reactions to receiving similar attention from someone else quite like how Jounouchi reacts here. So if you're a bit confused why Jounouchi reacts the way he does, well, middle school experiences with Hirutani are why.

But that's enough of that. Let's get to . . .

* * *

The Space Between Our Hands  


 **Two: A Second Opinion**

* * *

They're relaxing by the lake in the local Botanical Garden when Yuugi notices it. In lieu of picking one of the shadier spots beneath the trees, Yuugi and Jounouchi had chosen to sit on the sun-washed rocks by the shore, Yuugi seated on the bigger one while Jounouchi sat cross-legged on the smaller one right next to him, a can of juice in his hands. Due to their difference in height they're just about level with each other this way (with Yuugi seated maybe just a little bit higher), and when Yuugi turns to look down toward the other end of the lake, where some fish are flipping up out of the water to get the food flakes that children are throwing in, he finds himself distracted by Jounouchi's hair.

He had never really noticed it before—or, he supposes, maybe he did, but only in an absent sort of way, like how one notices the blooming flowers they pass every day on their morning commute. He had noticed it enough to know that it was blond, and that there was a lot of it; Jounouchi's hair has always been a bit on the longer side, has always been thick and shaggy, with a few flyaway strands here and there. But Yuugi had never given Jounouchi's hair much thought other than that—had never really paid much attention to it before. But now, as they relax by the lake in the summer sun, Yuugi keeps finding his attention drawn right back to it.

It's the sun's fault, he thinks. The sun is bright, and maybe it's due to summer-long exposure to it or maybe it's the spot they chose on that particular day, but the sunlight has brought out red highlights in Jounouchi's hair that Yuugi has never noticed before now. It makes sense, he supposes, as he looks at the way the red strands blend with the blond to give Jounouchi's hair a golden shine; given how red Shizuka's hair is, it only makes sense that Jounouchi's hair could have some natural red highlights in it, too. But even though it makes sense, and even though it's just _hair_ (and hair he's seen a billion times before, at that) and he shouldn't be so fascinated by it, Yuugi can't help but stare. More like, he can't help but want to run his fingers through it, much in the same way Jounouchi always does himself.

Unfortunately, the consequence of prolonged attention is that the person being watched does eventually notice, and after about thirty seconds straight of Yuugi's not-subtle staring, Jounouchi looks over at Yuugi and asks, "Something up, Yuugi?"

"Ah, no, it's nothing," Yuugi says, and he tears his eyes away from Jounouchi's hair to make eye contact with him instead. Jounouchi raises his eyebrows in question, as if he can tell that there _is_ actually something up, and under his scrutiny Yuugi looks at his hair again. Before he can stop himself, Yuugi gives in to the impulse he has felt since they first sat down and reaches up to briefly thread his fingers through Jounouchi's hair, lightly fluffing a few strands up in the process. "It's just—your hair . . . "

Jounouchi grimaces and pulls away from Yuugi's touch, and Yuugi jerks his own hand back as though burned. He shouldn't have done it. He doesn't know what made him do it—why he decided to follow through when he knows it isn't exactly cool to just touch another person's hair, especially without asking—

"Yeah, yeah," Jounouchi says, and he looks back out over the lake. "My hair's really stupid looking, I know. I got it."

Yuugi frowns. He can't say that's the last reason he expected to hear for why Jounouchi is upset with him, but only because it's one that he hadn't even considered. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, obviously. It's—stupid, or gross, or whatever." Whether it's to draw attention to his point or the same subconscious habit he's always had, Jounouchi reaches up and runs his hand through his hair, mussing it further. "But it's whatever, you know, it's not like I can really change it. My hair does what it wants. It's . . . whatever." His scowl deepens as he turns his eyes to the can of juice in his hands, and in a voice so low that Yuugi almost doesn't catch it he mutters, "I didn't think you cared."

"I don't. I mean, it doesn't—your hair's not stupid or gross," Yuugi says, and when Jounouchi gives him a skeptical look out of the corner of his eye, Yuugi insists, "It's not. Can I . . . ?" He lifts his hand toward Jounouchi's hair, and after a second of consideration Jounouchi shrugs as if to say _'do whatever you want,'_ so Yuugi does.

Jounouchi's hair is soft. That's to be expected, really, because Yuugi knows Jounouchi doesn't use any kind of spray or gel to hold it in place and he showers regularly, but somehow his hair is still softer than anticipated as Yuugi runs his fingers through it. It's thick, but not coarse, and despite how wild it always looks, Yuugi's fingers hit few snags or tangles. The strands are smooth against Yuugi's fingers, and all of the direct sunlight has warmed them nicely. Even though Jounouchi is still frowning, Yuugi can't help but smile.

"It's really not gross," he says, and he fluffs it a little again, lightly mussing the strands between his fingers. "It feels pretty clean to me, actually."

"Well . . . yeah," Jounouchi says. "But that's not—it doesn't really have to do with washing."

"Then what?" Yuugi asks, but instead of answering, Jounouchi just shrugs again. Yuugi pulls his hand away, his curiosity sated. "Well, I don't really know what you're talking about, but I don't think your hair is gross or stupid looking. Actually, I was going to point out that it looks a lot more red in the sun—not as red as Shizuka-chan's, of course, but still redder. It's nice looking."

Jounouchi looks over at him so quickly Yuugi is surprised he doesn't crick his neck, his eyes wide. "What?"

Slightly taken aback by Jounouchi's sudden reaction, Yuugi says, "Um, I said your hair looks redder in the sun, and . . . it's nice. That's all."

Jounouchi is still staring at him, as if waiting for Yuugi to say something else, and after a beat of silence passes between them in which Yuugi doesn't, Jounouchi says, "Really?"

"Yeah," Yuugi says, and it suddenly feels way too hot on that rock out in the sun. He laughs awkwardly and rubs at the back of his neck, half wishing that he'd had the foresight to grab a drink earlier like Jounouchi had. "Sorry, I guess it's kind of a weird thing to say—"

"No," Jounouchi says quickly, and he looks away again. He toys with the metal tab on the top of his juice can. "It's not weird. It's . . ." He clears his throat, but that doesn't really do much to make his voice any louder as he says, "Thanks."

The corners of Jounouchi's lips are tilted up in a little smile, one almost hidden by the way he's ducked his head to aim that smile at his juice can instead, but Yuugi sees it anyway and smiles in response himself. "No problem."


	3. cuddling in a blanket fort

**Notes:** This one takes place when they're about 18/19, pretty much right after they've moved into their apartment together.

* * *

The Space Between Our Hands

 **Three: The Best Defense**

* * *

It had taken work to collect as many blankets as they had, and really, Yuugi was surprised they needed so many. When they had first decided on their apartment, it had seemed big enough, but the size seemed to shrink after they finished moving their furniture and other belongings in, even allowing for both of their bedrooms. Once they had decided to turn the apartment into a massive blanket fort for an entire weekend, though, the size once again seemed formidable. In the end, it took not only all of the sheets and blankets from both of their beds, but also spare blankets and comforters that they smuggled out of Yuugi's house. They would return them once the weekend was over, so it was fine to take them, as far as Yuugi was concerned. Besides, Yuugi figured that his grandpa discreetly distracting his mother was implicit allowance. His grandpa couldn't have known what the blankets were for, but he was helping Yuugi and Jounouchi sneak them out anyway. That was as good as an all-clear.

All the same, as Yuugi pinned up the last of the kitchen blankets by jamming the corner of the blanket into one of the upper cabinet doors, he couldn't help but be struck by the sudden realization of how silly they must have looked, clambering over furniture to pin blankets as close to the ceiling as they could make them. He laughed.

"What's up, Yuugi?" Jounouchi called. He was pinning blankets up across the room, over the by the living room window. Yuugi walked along the counter to fix the other end of his blanket to the corner of the wall by the fridge.

"I was just thinking that . . . it's kind of goofy we're doing this, right?" He looked over to see Jounouchi looking at him with a raised eyebrow, and so he clarified, "Making a blanket fort, I mean. Kids make blanket forts. We moved out on our own . . . we're supposed to be adults."

"Exactly. We're adults. That's why we're making a blanket fort," Jounouchi said. He hopped down from the armrest of the chair where he'd been perched, and when he saw the questioning look Yuugi gave him, he explained, "See, when you're a kid living with your parents, you have to do what they say, usually. If you want to turn the house into a blanket fort, you can't because they'll say no. But when you're an adult and you have your own place, you can do whatever you want with it, which includes turning it into the most awesome blanket fort this side of Domino City if you want." He flashed Yuugi a lopsided grin. "So you see, it's _because_ we're adults that we're making a blanket fort. Nothing kid-like about it."

Yuugi couldn't help but laugh again as he beamed. "You're right," he said, even as he knew that some others would argue that just because they _could_ do it didn't mean it was less childish. Who cared what those others thought, anyway? "Exactly right."

"Yeah, I know," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi shook his head as he tried to choke back another bout of laughter and pinned the side of his blanket up over the fridge.

It didn't take too much longer for them to finish pinning the rest of the blankets up around their apartment, and when they were done, they crawled beneath the canopy to make their way over to the television. There, they had amassed not only a comfortable nest of pillows and extra blankets (how they had extras Yuugi had no idea, but he figured the fact that his grandpa couldn't go to the store without buying more of them due to how cold winters could get had something to do with it), but a wide variety of snacks, video games, movies, and—most importantly—four cardboard spinners. Once they were both situated in their comfortable nest, Yuugi laid all four spinners he'd created out between them.

"Okay," he said, "so the rules to this game are pretty simple. First, one of us will spin the activity spinner, and we'll decide which one of us that is via coin toss." He tapped his finger against the activity spinner, which had three equally sized spaces: one for movies, one for video games, and one for traditional (which Yuugi had scrawled "board/card" next to in parenthesis) games. "Once the spinner decides which thing we'll do, the one who didn't spin it will pick a genre or game from the matching spinner. So for instance, if I spun this one and it hit video games—"

"—then I'd spin the video game spinner to figure out which type of game we'll play," Jounouchi said, and there was a note of exasperation in his voice. Yuugi smiled a bit sheepishly. "Yeah, I got it. It's simple enough."

"Yeah," Yuugi said. "Once you figure out the genre, then I'd pick a game from that genre. We'll keep alternating like that to keep things fair and interesting."

"Sounds good to me. Keeps us from wasting too much time trying to figure out what to do, anyway," Jounouchi said. "So, you got a coin?"

"Yup!" Yuugi swiped the yen coin he had placed on the coffee table for just that purpose, and when he looked back he saw that Jounouchi was grinning.

"Trust you to always be prepared when it comes to a game," he said. Yuugi felt a thrill of pride. "All right, let's do this! I call heads."

"Then I'll take tails!" Yuugi flipped the coin in the air, and both of them watched it spin up before it tumbled back down, landing neatly on the carpet between them. As one they leaned over to see it, and Jounouchi groaned when he saw that it had come up tails.

"I _always_ lose coin tosses," he said.

"Not always. Your luck with Time Wizard tends to be pretty good," Yuugi said fairly, as he set the coin back on the coffee table before he spun the activity spinner.

"Yeah, that's true," Jounouchi said, and this time, he was the one that sounded like he felt a bit good about himself.

The activity spinner landed solidly on _movie,_ and so Yuugi grabbed the movie spinner and passed it over to Jounouchi. While the traditional game spinner had specific games, such as Duel Monsters or Monster Fighter, marked on it, the movie and video game spinners were blocked off by genre. (Yuugi had considered making two spinners for video games—one for console, and then one for genre _after_ the console spinner was spun—but he figured that would just make the process too drawn out.) Jounouchi flicked the movie spinner without preamble, using a bit more force than was strictly necessary as if he thought it would help him land on something good, only for his face to crumple in despair when the spinner landed solidly on _horror_.

"Aw, come on! You've gotta be kidding me!" he groaned.

"Hard luck, Jounouchi-kun," Yuugi said, as Jounouchi flopped backward to land on one of their pillow piles. Yuugi was well aware of Jounouchi's fear of all things horror. It bordered on a phobia at times, and truthfully, Yuugi had always felt a bit perplexed by it. Jounouchi had no problem facing things in real life that were legitimately dangerous; he hadn't backed down even a little when he was handcuffed to a serial killer, he would readily engage any enemy in a fistfight no matter their size, he had fought in Shadow Games that had very nearly succeeded in killing him, and through it all, he didn't cower even once. But when he was faced with the imagery of ghosts or demons in the form of holograms or movies—things that weren't real and therefore could not actually hurt him—his defiant, reckless courage wavered. It was the strangest thing, but Yuugi didn't mind it. It was just part of what made Jounouchi . . . well, Jounouchi.

In any case, although he had added horror to the spinner in the interest of fairness, Yuugi had admittedly not expected it to come up so soon. It wasn't really how he'd wanted to kickstart their blanket fort weekend. He hesitated a moment, chewing his lip, before he said, "Do you . . . want to spin again?"

"No," Jounouchi said, and he heaved a sigh. "The spinner said horror, so we're gonna do horror. I'll just have to face it like a man." He pushed himself up again, and nodded toward the stack of DVDs. "Go ahead and pick one out, Yuugi. Gimme your best shot."

"Well . . . okay. If you're sure." Yuugi crawled over to the DVD pile, and pulled the horror stack closer to him. After a moment of flipping through the cases, he chose an indie psychological horror film from the pile, figuring that at least a film like that probably wouldn't have demons oozing from the walls. That, he figured, would make it easier for Jounouchi to handle. "How about this one? Bakura-kun recommended it."

"Oh, great. Bakura recommended it. I'm sure that won't make it the creepiest movie in the world at all," Jounouchi said.

Yuugi held the movie over the stack. "If you want to try again—"

"No, no." Jounouchi waved his concerns off. "It's the rules of the game, right? You spin for what we do, I spin for the genre, you pick the thing from the genre I landed us on. Come on, I can play the game. No big deal. No more complaints from me."

"Well, okay. If you're really sure . . ." Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi nodded, Yuugi scooted over to the DVD player. Yuugi slid the DVD in and used the player's remote to quickly bypass the menus and previews, and once the movie started up, he crawled back over to sit in the central pillow nest with Jounouchi.

The movie started out easily enough. Jounouchi and Yuugi both relaxed against the pillows (though Jounouchi was a bit tense, Yuugi could tell), and while they both leaned back against the pillows they'd propped up along the side of the coffee table, Yuugi leaned over a bit so that his shoulder was against Jounouchi's as a show of silent moral support. Like most horror movies, this movie didn't really require that at the start. Instead, it opened with what seemed like perfectly normal, if a bit unpleasant in personality, people going about their daily lives. Nothing was wrong with the old house they had just so happened to purchase despite it being out in the middle of nowhere, they were sure. Everything was fine.

True to form, things did not stay fine, and from the moment the child character began noticing another child—an eerie, unearthly child with hair that looked a little too wet and eyes that looked a little too dark—watching them from the garden, it was clear that Jounouchi was no longer okay with the direction the movie was taking. His fingers squeezed the edges of the pillows they were seated on, and when the first jump scare of the movie came in the form of the unearthly child leaning over the child character's bed so that they were the first thing the child character saw upon waking, Jounouchi abruptly grabbed Yuugi's wrist and squeezed it tightly, his eyes wide and his jaw rigid as he stared at the screen, his breathing quick and shallow enough to tell Yuugi that his heart must have been racing.

"Sorry," Jounouchi said after a moment, and he released Yuugi's wrist. Yuugi massaged it. "I just . . ."

"It's okay," Yuugi said, and when Jounouchi didn't answer—something which told Yuugi that Jounouchi didn't think it was okay, but wasn't going to disagree outright—Yuugi scooted closer so that he was sitting flush against Jounouchi's side. Moving as if on instinct, Jounouchi put his arm around Yuugi's shoulders, though he gave Yuugi a puzzled look as he did so. Yuugi grinned. "It's kind of freaking me out a little, too," he explained. "If we sit together like this, we can keep each other safe."

Jounouchi gave Yuugi a smile that said he didn't really buy that Yuugi was also scared, but it was clear enough that he wasn't going to question it, either. "You got it," he said. "We'll get through this thing together."

"Definitely," Yuugi agreed.

It was a good enough plan, but the movie was close to three hours long due to how long it spent in the build-up stage, and after the second or third jump scare and the first series of scenes dealing with a haunting that may or may not have included actual ghosts (it was unclear, and now that he thought on it, Yuugi thought he remembered Bakura saying that it was supposed to be just as psychologically horrifying for the audience as it was for the characters), Jounouchi ended up accidentally pulling Yuugi close with enough strength to tug Yuugi into his lap. He apologized, but Yuugi—figuring that it might be easier this way, especially if this _was_ supposed to be a mind game for them as well—repositioned himself so that he was seated between Jounouchi's legs instead, and leaned back against Jounouchi's chest. Jounouchi seemed doubtful of this new seating arrangement for only a second; in the next, one of the characters discovered that her family portrait had Xs drawn over each person's face in what looked like blood, and as the music delved into a melody comprised of haunting piano and scare chords, Jounouchi wrapped both of his arms around Yuugi's shoulders and held him tightly.

They spent the rest of the movie like that. Jounouchi held Yuugi back against him, and for his part, Yuugi enjoyed it. The movie was definitely terrifying—Bakura could pick them, and on reflection Yuugi should have known that he shouldn't have considered a _Bakura_ movie when trying to find one Jounouchi would be comfortable with—but Jounouchi's arms were warm and strong, and that made the movie seem considerably less frightening. There were a few times when Jounouchi squeezed him a little too tightly (though he always let up when Yuugi said so), and more than once, Jounouchi buried his face in Yuugi's hair to avoid looking at the screen (once, near the end of the movie, this was accompanied by an unhappy whine mixed with a stream of muffled obscenities, and Yuugi had to fight back a smile). But other than that, with his arms around Yuugi and his chin resting on top of Yuugi's head, Jounouchi didn't lodge a single complaint about the movie the rest of the way through.

When it was over, and the movie returned to the DVD menu, Jounouchi once again had his face buried in Yuugi's hair, his arms still wrapped comfortably around Yuugi's shoulders. Yuugi was relaxed back against Jounouchi's chest, but after a moment he asked, "Jounouchi-kun, are you okay?"

"Mm, yeah. Sorry, Yuugi," Jounouchi said. He pulled back, but Yuugi shook his head and turned around to face him.

"No, don't worry about it. That was just . . . a lot more horrifying than I thought it would be when I picked it." He laughed a bit sheepishly. "Maybe next time I won't listen to Bakura-kun when it comes to movie recommendations."

Jounouchi gave a flat look. "You think?" he said, his tone just as dry, but then he smiled a little. "But nah, it was fine. Made it through like I said I would, right? And besides, we did it together, so it's no big deal. Not for us, anyway."

"Right," Yuugi said, and he grinned himself as he used the remote to turn the DVD player off and then reached for the activity spinner. "Okay, Jounouchi-kun, you're up again. It's your turn to decide what we do next."

This time Jounouchi's grin was a little bigger, and he cracked his knuckles before he reached for the spinner. "All right," he said. "Let's do this."


	4. sharing a bed

**Notes:** This one takes place when they're about still in high school—maybe in first year, after Death-T but before Duelist Kingdom. So, quite a bit earlier than the first three, but hey: I did say this collection would jump around quite a bit.

And yes, as Vol. 5, Ch. 41 of the manga shows us, Yuugi's grades are canonically terrible.

* * *

The Space Between Our Hands

 **Four: A Coordinated Effort, or** **Impromptu Sleepovers**

* * *

Homework was, without question, _the worst_ , although Yuugi supposed that if he didn't have a bad habit of leaving it until the very last minute, it might not feel as grueling as it did when he finally decided to attack the mountain that had built up in his backpack.

As he looked over Jounouchi's completed math assignment and compared it to the one he was working on himself (his textbook propped up against the wall beneath his window), he figured that it wasn't entirely his fault that he procrastinated his homework so badly. Homework was _boring_ ; it was challenging sometimes, but the challenge was better compared to scooping water with a spatula than completing advanced levels in a video game. There was no real reward to it (besides good marks and placement in a good university, his mother would remind him sternly, but those two things didn't feel very motivating to Yuugi), and it exhausted him by the midway point. The work that wasn't challenging was just boring; it was busy work, and Yuugi felt his attention slipping away every time he attempted it. Why should he waste his time doing that when he could be playing a game or watching a movie instead? There were plenty of things that he and Jounouchi could do instead of wasting their time with homework. Having him over just so they could finally start to carve through their homework pile (one that Yuugi had wisely kept out of Anzu's sight, knowing that her opinion would be similar to that of his mother's) felt unfair to both of them.

But that was how they had decided to spend Sunday night anyway, given that they both had enough homework backlogged to wrap Mt Fuji twice over (not that Yuugi knew how much homework that would actually take, and the algebra he was currently trying to cut through had worn his brain down with enough math that he didn't want to spend the energy to figure it out). Jounouchi was better at math than Yuugi was, so he did their math assignment first before passing it off to Yuugi (who did his best to double check it for accuracy while copying down the work, changing things here or there to make it less easy to detect). Meanwhile, since Yuugi had received help on their history assignment from his grandpa earlier in the afternoon, Yuugi had passed that off to Jounouchi so that he could look off it to complete his own. What they were doing was technically cheating, Yuugi supposed, but it wasn't like they were cheating on tests or games, so it didn't feel like as big of a deal. _Besides,_ he thought, as he gave up trying to puzzle out problem seventeen and just copied down what Jounouchi had written, _it's not like we're going to be top of the class anyway, so it's not like we're really hurting anyone._

No one but themselves, anyway, given that their procrastination had led to them spending from six in the evening until—Yuugi looked at the clock on his bed's headboard and bit back a groan— _midnight_ working on their homework, but—

Yuugi blinked, briefly distracted from his exasperation and irritation at the late hour as he caught sight of Jounouchi on his bed.

While Yuugi had chosen to sit at his desk, Jounouchi had chosen to sprawl across Yuugi's bed. Jounouchi being Jounouchi, he was never comfortable in one position for long; he shifted every so often from laying on his side, to sitting back against the wall, to sprawling on his stomach, to hanging halfway off the bed . . . Jounouchi's occasional fidgeting and movement, combined with the occasional complaints about the work or questions lobbed between them, had done a good job of breaking up the silence and killing the monotony of the schoolwork that plagued them. But it occurred to Yuugi that Jounouchi had been oddly quiet for a while now, both in terms of things he said and movements he made, and as he looked at Jounouchi now, he could see why.

Jounouchi had laid on his stomach again, his history textbook open against Yuugi's pillows, Yuugi's assignment on one side and his own scratched into the pages of a spiral notebook on the other. If Yuugi had to guess, when Jounouchi had been working earlier, he'd had his elbow propped on his left arm. Now, however, he was using his arm as a makeshift pillow, his cheek pressed against his forearm while his head rested in the crook of his elbow. His pencil was still balanced in his right hand, the tip held loosely above his notebook as he slept.

Yuugi smiled faintly. The tedious nature of their history assignment aside, it was no wonder that Jounouchi had fallen asleep. His work as a newspaper delivery boy had him up pretty early every day, and it had gotten pretty late. Yuugi couldn't be sure _when_ Jounouchi had fallen asleep, exactly—maybe an hour ago, if he had to guess—but for him to pass out on the bed like that, he probably needed it.

His math assignment wasn't done, and when he leaned over to get a look at what Jounouchi had written, Yuugi saw that Jounouchi's history assignment wasn't done, either. But it was late, Jounouchi was sleeping, and even though neither their math nor their history teacher would be pleased with them the following morning, Yuugi didn't want to stay up to keep plowing through his homework alone. He slipped his math assignment into his textbook before he closed it, and dropped it—along with the pencil and calculator he had been using—into his book bag. That accomplished (and already feeling a bit better now that it was out of his sight), Yuugi grabbed Jounouchi's math assignment from his desk and slipped it into Jounouchi's bag, likewise wedging it in between the pages of Jounouchi's math book. If nothing else, Yuugi thought, Jounouchi had his math homework done, and Yuugi had completed his own history assignment. At least they would please one teacher a piece. That was better than nothing. (They had also completed their science and literature assignments, though neither of them had even _started_ their English work. Yuugi wasn't very fond of thinking about his English grade.)

Jounouchi had, thankfully, not fallen asleep on top of his book or either of the assignments, and so Yuugi was able to reach across him to grab his own history assignment and stick that into his book bag before he set about gathering Jounouchi's things. Though his back rose and fell steadily with each slow, deep breath he took, Jounouchi didn't so much as twitch as Yuugi grabbed his history textbook and notebook, or even when Yuugi plucked his pencil from his hand. Yuugi shoved the textbook, notebook, and pencil into Jounouchi's bag before he set it on his desk chair with his own. Despite the way he dropped it onto the chair—despite the way the heavy bag hit the chair with a decently loud _thud_ —Jounouchi slept just as soundly as before.

Well, at least he was getting good rest.

Though he debated waking Jounouchi up so that he could get home (he would, after all, need a fresh change of clothes and a shower before school the next morning), he ultimately decided against it as he took his pajamas to the bathroom so he could change and brush his teeth. Sending him home would mean sending him back to his father, and while Jounouchi insisted that Yuugi didn't need to worry about his dad, that didn't stop Yuugi from worrying all the same. An impromptu sleepover wasn't so bad, anyway; Yuugi was sure Jounouchi had work the next morning (and he didn't know what time, but he would set his alarm for four a.m. just in case since he seemed to remember Jounouchi saying that it was at an "ungodly hour" once, and four a.m. seemed ungodly enough), but maybe if Jounouchi finished his paper route quickly enough, they could both finish their history and math assignments. If nothing else, when Jounouchi woke up to go to work, maybe Yuugi would wake up to complete his math homework before class. (This was a pipe dream, and Yuugi knew it even as he turned off the tap and headed back to his room, but it felt good to tell himself that he would wake up early and be productive with his schoolwork even if everyone and Yuugi's own grandfather knew he wouldn't actually do it.)

After he tossed his clothes at his laundry hamper and set the Millennium Puzzle on his desk, Yuugi switched off the light and made his way over to the bed. Jounouchi had sprawled right down the middle; his legs were long enough that his feet dangled off the end, and no matter which way Yuugi looked, he couldn't see a way for him to fit comfortably on the bed with Jounouchi taking up the center. He hadn't wanted to wake Jounouchi up, and he still didn't, but without much of a choice left he leaned over and gently shook Jounouchi's shoulder.

"Hey, Jounouchi-kun," he said softly. "Move over."

Jounouchi started a little under Yuugi's touch, and his breathing stuttered sharply as his eyes fluttered open. Even though the only light in the room was now from the moonlight shining in through the window, Yuugi could still see the sleepy confusion that crossed his best friend's face, even as Jounouchi blinked a few times as though trying to be more alert.

"Wha—?"

"Don't worry about it," Yuugi said quickly, and he gave Jounouchi another gentle nudge toward the other side of the bed. "It's late, just scoot over."

Whether it was because he had realized that it was too late to go home, or because he was just sleepy enough to listen to whatever Yuugi said so long as it meant he got to sleep more, Jounouchi rolled onto his back and shifted so that he was on the side of the bed against the wall. Yuugi settled down onto the mattress himself (squirming under the covers as best he could with Jounouchi still lying on top of them), and reached over to swipe his alarm clock off the headboard once he was settled.

"Hey," he said, even though a glance over told him that Jounouchi's eyes had fallen shut again, his breathing once again slowing to a more rhythmic, even pace, "is four a good time to wake up for work?"

Jounouchi hummed what Yuugi thought (or hoped, at least) was an affirmative, and so Yuugi set the alarm for four before he put the clock back on his headboard and settled back down in the bed.

Yuugi's bed wasn't the biggest in the world, and even given the difference in their size, they each took up one half of it. He only had one pillow, and now that Jounouchi had adjusted his position so that he was lying on the bed properly (even if he still wasn't under the covers), he and Yuugi were sharing it. Still, despite the lack of real space, Yuugi found he didn't really mind. Jounouchi's breathing was nice and even, and was somehow soothing in the otherwise silent room. Even when Jounouchi rolled over so that his arm was slung across Yuugi's side, his breath brushing against the back of Yuugi's neck, Yuugi couldn't help but smile a little.

They hadn't finished all of their homework, and his bed was a bit small for two people, but as he drifted to sleep under Jounouchi's arm, Yuugi couldn't help but feel that everything was as it should be.


	5. one finds the other crying

**Notes:** This one takes place when they're living together in college, around a very specific time: Yuugi is twenty-four, Jounouchi is twenty-three, Yuugi has realized that he has romantic feelings for Jounouchi, and Jounouchi is still oblivious both to his own romantic feelings _and_ to Yuugi's. That's the main point of specification you need, although the song Jounouchi sings in this can give you an even more specific idea of when this takes place.

* * *

The Space Between Our Hands

 **Five: Just by Being There**

* * *

It was one of those days, or so it felt, where nothing in the world could go wrong. To begin with, the weather was perfect: bright and sunny, with a persistent breeze that wove its way around the buildings of the city and brushed against your face just enough to take the edge off the heat. That morning, pedestrian traffic had been sparse, which made it easy for Jounouchi to make it to the radio station a little early, and on his way home from work (since it just so happened to be a day where he finished up in the afternoon), he swung by the local smoothie shop to find that the line was all but empty, allowing him to dip in, grab an orange-pineapple-mango smoothie, and dip out without any hassle. He had texted Yuugi to see if he wanted anything, since he thought Yuugi was usually home at around this time, but didn't receive a response. That was fine, Jounouchi thought. Yuugi was probably just absorbed in his senior overview again. He got a large smoothie, just in case Yuugi wanted to share.

He was in such a good mood that by the time he made it home and jogged up the stairs to their apartment door, he had progressed from humming beneath his breath to outright singing the words that had been stuck in his head for the past several weeks courtesy of Orange Range releasing their newest single, and his station giving in to every phoned in request to play it. He bounced a little to the beat as he fished his keys out of his pocket and turned them in the lock, and as he stepped inside and kicked his shoes off by the door, he raised his voice to full volume, much more confident in his singing ability in his own home than he was out on the street.

" _Come on, baby, do the locomotion! Ah, ah—locolotion! Ah, a—_ Yuugi?"

The apartment Jounouchi shared with Yuugi wasn't very big, but it was big enough for the two of them. The front door opened on the living room, which took up two-thirds of the main room; the other one-third was taken up by the kitchen, which was to the right of the door, and all the way in the back. Jounouchi's and Yuugi's rooms were on either side of the apartment, the doors positioned along the dividing line between the living room and the kitchen, Jounouchi's on the far side of the apartment by the sofa, and Yuugi's on the side of the apartment by the television and front door. Their rooms faced each other, and though it was never a spoken upon agreement between them or even something they had ever talked about, neither of them ever really shut their bedroom doors. After all, they didn't have anything to hide from each other, and having the doors open all the time made it easy to talk even if they were in their respective rooms (or so Jounouchi felt, anyway).

But it was because Yuugi had his door open like normal that Jounouchi—on his way into the kitchen to grab a snack to go along with his smoothie—spotted Yuugi sitting on his bedroom floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, his back against the wall. Jounouchi had paused by the island counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, smoothie in hand, and as Yuugi looked up at him, he sniffed and quickly tried to wipe away the tears on his face with his arm. The warmth and cheer that Jounouchi had felt evaporated as quickly as a drop of water on a burning skillet, and he set his smoothie down on the counter before went to Yuugi, crossing the room in long strides before he dropped to his knees before him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he said, and as Yuugi shook his head and rubbed the remaining tears out of his eyes with the palm of his hand, Jounouchi pressed, "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm not—it's nothing," Yuugi said, but his voice was still congested from crying, and Jounouchi frowned. Seeing this—and realizing, it seemed, that Jounouchi didn't believe him—Yuugi sighed. "I just—I got a call from my mom earlier. Grandpa's—he—he had a heart attack."

It was as if Jounouchi had swallowed a giant block of ice whole. For a second, he couldn't even really process what Yuugi had said—couldn't really fathom it, because even though Yuugi's grandpa was pushing eighty at this point (and was actually going to hit that age exactly in a few months, Jounouchi thought, though he couldn't be positive on that), there was something about the man that seemed somehow invincible to Jounouchi. Barring extenuating circumstances, like Kaiba torturing him with a virtual reality simulation or Pegasus using the Millennium Eye to remove his soul, it had always felt like nothing could take Yuugi's grandpa down, and certainly nothing as mundane as old age. Because of this, it was a bit of a struggle for Jounouchi to find his voice, and when he finally did (and was sure that he could keep it steady and calm, for Yuugi's sake if nothing else), he asked, "Is he—?"

"He's okay. He's going to be okay," Yuugi said, and Jounouchi's shoulders sagged in relief. Yuugi held up his cell phone for Jounouchi to see, though he was still squeezing it so tightly his knuckles were pale. "Mom called me about fifteen minutes ago to tell me. They're still at the hospital, but he's going to be okay. The doctors said it was just a small one, and he got there in enough time anyway."

"Thank god," Jounouchi said. Yuugi nodded, and pressed his lips tightly together as he looked away from Jounouchi, staring instead at the wooden legs of his desk chair. Jounouchi didn't miss the way Yuugi swallowed down a lump in his throat. "Are you—?"

"I'm fine," Yuugi said, but his voice cracked over the word _fine_ , and despite himself a few more tears slipped down his cheeks before he wiped them away. "It's just—I'm just being stupid. Grandpa's fine. Everything's okay. There's no reason to be upset."

"You're not stupid," Jounouchi said, and he crawled over so that he could sit against the wall as well, and put his arm around Yuugi's shoulders. "He's your gramps, Yuugi. It's okay to be upset about him . . . you know. Almost dying."

"Yeah, but he didn't die," Yuugi said. "He's okay now, so—"

"But you didn't know that at first, right?" Jounouchi said. Yuugi was quiet, but his silence was all the confirmation Jounouchi needed. "So it's okay if you're still upset. You didn't know. That's a lot for anyone to go through, especially considering how close you and Gramps are."

Yuugi hummed a little in what was either acknowledgement or agreement, or perhaps both. He took a deep, shaky breath through his nose, and after a moment he said quietly, "I just can't help but think . . . he was okay this time, but what about the next? He's—he's old. And this was—he wasn't even doing anything dangerous this time. It wasn't Kaiba-kun or Pegasus, it was just—"

"Old age. His own body," Jounouchi said. Yuugi nodded.

"He made it through this time, but what about next time? What if it's next week, or next month, or . . ." Yuugi lifted one hand as if to gesture to some other date, but then let it fall back to the carpet. "I don't—I'm not ready for that. Not yet."

"I don't think you're ever gonna be ready for that. That's not something anyone is ever really ready for. You can't really psyche yourself up for something like that, you know? You can't just say, 'Okay, I'm ready for my gramps to die now.' One, it would be kinda messed up if you did feel that way, and two, that would probably require you to stop loving the guy, and I can't see that happening ever."

Yuugi's bottom lip trembled, even as he swallowed again to try and regain composure. "Yeah, but—but that doesn't mean he has to die _now_ , or—"

"You don't want him to die any time soon. I get that," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi sniffed as he looked down again. "But the thing is, Yuugi, that any time is gonna be 'too soon.' Whether it's next week, or next month, or six years from now—whenever he croaks, it's gonna be too soon, and it's gonna hurt like a bitch. Probably it's gonna be one of the worst things you'll ever have to go through, no matter when it happens."

"Thanks," Yuugi said, his tone more than a little sarcastic.

" _But_ ," Jounouchi pressed on, ignoring Yuugi's sarcasm, "you're not gonna have to go through it alone. We—all of us—everyone who knows Gramps loves the guy, and we all love you, too. You're gonna lose Gramps, and I know that's gonna hurt you more than it'll hurt anyone else, but you'll still have all of your friends right there with you, _for_ you, through the whole thing. We'll help you get through it, no matter what."

Finally, the corners of Yuugi's lips tugged up in a hint of a smile. "Thanks," he said after a moment, his tone much more sincere this time.

Jounouchi smiled back, and briefly tightened his one-armed hug. "Don't mention it. So, are you gonna go up to the hospital to see him, or . . . ?"

"Yeah, I was planning to in a little bit. I was just waiting for you to get home. You don't have to come with, or anything, I just . . ." Yuugi huffed a small, sheepish laugh. "I just wanted to see you, first."

Jounouchi scoffed in the back of his throat. "What do you mean, I don't have to come with? What did I just get through saying? You don't have to do this alone, Yuugi. Not now, or ever. I'm definitely going with you to visit Gramps in the hospital, no doubt about it."

Yuugi looked up at Jounouchi, and rather than just the ghost of a smile Jounouchi had seen before, a real smile finally spread Yuugi's cheeks as he said, "Thank you, Jounouchi-kun. For that, and for . . . being here. I'm really glad you're here."

"Of course I'm here," Jounouchi said. "I'll always be here. You're stuck with me. Thought that'd be pretty obvious by now."

Yuugi snorted. "'Stuck.' Okay." He scooted a little closer into Jounouchi's embrace, and laid his head on Jounouchi's shoulder (as best he could, anyway, given Jounouchi's one-armed hug).

"Yep," Jounouchi said, and he grinned. "Stuck. So you better get used to it."

"That's the plan," Yuugi said softly. Jounouchi blinked, caught off-guard and unsure what Yuugi meant by that, but Yuugi didn't elaborate and so Jounouchi didn't say anything in response.

He had thought that they would go up to the hospital then, now that Yuugi had filled him in and seemed calmer. But Yuugi didn't seem to be in any hurry to move, and Jounouchi figured that any hospital worth its salt would want to keep Yuugi's grandpa there overnight anyway, just in case. There was plenty of time for Yuugi to decide when he was ready, and until then, Jounouchi was content to stay right where he was with his arm around Yuugi, and Yuugi's head on his shoulder. That was more than fine by him.


	6. holding hands

**Notes:** This one takes place when Jounouchi and Yuugi are twenty-one (though Yuugi's twenty-second birthday would be in a couple months, so this takes place circa 2002). So, as a reminder, they're not actually romantically involved yet, and neither one is aware of the feelings they have for each other. Of course, that doesn't always stop misconceptions . . .

Shiori and Kisugi are Yuugi's friends from university, and are my own creation, since I figure he would have had to make some friends while attending college. Because people in Japan address each other differently depending on their relationship, and since that can get a bit confusing when original characters are thrown into mix, Shiori's boyfriend's full name is Ishimoto Naoya and Kisugi's boyfriend's full name is Nimura Daisuke. Those are the only two whose names might be confusing, due to them being referred to by two separate names in this little fic, so I just wanted to make that clear up front!

Lastly, a _kotatsu_ is a type of Japanese table that has a heater beneath it and blankets coming down off the sides. I don't think there's an English word for it/way to translate that, so I just used the actual word. But for anyone who is confused, that's what that is.

* * *

The Space Between Our Hands

 **Six: A Hand to Hold**

* * *

Snow was a rarity in Domino City. Even in the winter months, when the temperatures dropped too low for Yuugi's comfort and stubbornly refused to rise until spring was well underway, snow was a rare event, a tease for high school students who prayed for cancelled classes and delayed exams. Back when he was still in high school, Yuugi had always been torn. On the one hand, a snow day meant that he could stay home and play games all day if he wanted, provided he also completed his chores and was available to help his grandpa in the shop. On the other hand, snow days meant _snow_ , and school was never canceled for more than a day at the time, which meant that Yuugi would be trudging through the frigid slush the very next day anyway. Even an all-day game session in the middle of the week wasn't worth that most winters.

Now that he was in university, classes were rarely, if ever, canceled for snow, even given its rarity. There was no longer any benefit whatsoever to snow, and so as far as Yuugi was concerned, if the weather decided to never snow again (in Domino, at least—it could keep snowing in places like Hokkaido if it wanted), it would be too soon.

It was this attitude, combined with the fact that it was _April_ and as such an injustice, that left Yuugi staring sourly out of the cafeteria window on a Thursday afternoon. An abnormal blizzard had struck the city the night before, as suddenly as if ten black mages had all decided to cast blizzaga at once, and even now a light snowfall swirled and scattered down on the quad, adding to the thick blanket already smothering the grass and early blooming flowers. Ordinarily, Yuugi, Shiori, and Kisugi would be eating lunch outside, underneath a large tree in the back corner of the quad. They had on Tuesday, after all, and even had Wednesday afternoon. The weather had been nice then, despite the cool breeze. But with the blizzard mutilating the newborn promise of springtime warmth the night before the three of them had been forced to retreat inside, crammed into a little corner booth from which their tree was visible from the window, but inaccessible due to the pile of snow weighing its branches down.

"Cheer up, Yuugi," Shiori said, and Yuugi tore his eyes away from the window to look over at her. She gave him an encouraging smile, a little octopus-shaped sausage held between her chopsticks above her bento box. "I'm sure the snow will be melted by next week, and maybe even sooner. It'll probably be the last snow of the season, too."

"There shouldn't be _any_ snow of the season. It's _April_ ," Yuugi said, and Shiori put the sausage in her mouth to keep from replying. Beside Yuugi, Kisugi shook his head and took another drink from his hot raspberry cocoa. "It's not fair."

"Ah, but Mother Nature is as blind as sweet Lady Justice," Kisugi said as he set his cup back down on the table. "Fairness is not in her repertoire, at least not when she calls in a favor from her good friend Jack Frost."

Yuugi scowled, and poked at his yakisoba with his chopsticks. "Still."

"Besides, look on the bright side of things! Look at the benefits—the pros which far outweigh the cons!" Kisugi continued. "This weather is perfect, if you think about it. We couldn't ask for a better boon in early spring."

"How so?"

"How so? How so?" Kisugi laughed. "Yuu-kun, open your eyes! This weather is perfect for all kinds of lovely activities! It's perfect for blanket cuddles, _kotatsu_ cuddles, cuddles around mugs of hot cocoa prepared by the sweetest of sweethearts—"

Yuugi rolled his eyes and looked back at his yakisoba, though he couldn't help the amused smile that twitched on his lips. "I thought you meant something like that."

"Of course I did!" Kisugi leaned back against the bench seat, a dreamy sigh escaping his lips as he looked up at the ceiling. "Ahh, when I get home tonight, both of my loves will be waiting for me with a warm _kotatsu_ and cocoa and—"

"Home?" Shiori asked. "Did you move in with Nimura-kun and Ai-san?"

"No, no. Ai and I are just spending the night at Daisuke's place tonight," Kisugi said with a wave of his hand. "But does it matter? No matter where the three of us are, _that_ is our home. Our hearts are united, and when joined they come together as one to create—!"

"Anyway, speaking of cold weather activities," Shiori said, and Kisugi gave her an scandalized look due to her interruption, "I was thinking that maybe we could all get together this weekend to go ice skating down at the pond in the park, since it froze over again. Maybe on Saturday?"

"Ice skating?" Yuugi said, and if the wintry catastrophe that had befallen their early spring hadn't dragged his mood down enough, he felt an unpleasant downward swoop in his gut. If Shiori noticed his lack of enthusiasm, she gave no indication of it; if anything, her smile looked a little more eager as she nodded.

"Yeah! Naoya and I went ice skating a few times over this past winter, and it was really fun. The pond is actually bigger than it looks, somehow; there's plenty of room to skate even if there are other people. We talked it over last night and we want to go again Saturday afternoon, and I figured maybe we could make a little thing out of it. Naoya and I will be there, and Kisugi can bring Nimura-kun and Ai-san—"

"Skating through an icy wonderland with a sweet love of mine on each arm? I can't think of anything better!" Kisugi said.

"—and you can bring Jounouchi," Shiori finished.

Yuugi poked at his yakisoba again, picking up a small bundle of noodles with his chopsticks to drag them halfway out of the little cardboard dish before he dropped them down again. "I guess . . ." he said slowly. "Jounouchi-kun might be busy, and I don't know if ice skating is really his thing . . ."

"But you never know until you ask, right?" Shiori said, and she leaned forward on the table a little. "And I'm sure if you ask he'll say yes. He usually does things with you that you ask him to, right?"

"It's not like that," Yuugi said. "Usually we're just into the same things."

"Well, see?" Shiori said, and she smiled brightly. "So I'm sure it'll be okay."

"Besides, there's no way he'll say no to you on this," Kisugi said. He stretched back against the bench seat and draped his arms along the back of it as he did so. "Just ask him all sweet-like and give him a big pair of puppy eyes and he'll be putty in your hands. That's how it always works with Daisuke and Ai and me."

"Aren't _you_ usually the one giving _them_ the puppy dog eyes?" Shiori asked.

"Details, details," Kisugi said, and although Shiori shook her head, she was smiling.

"Anyway, so that's that, then," Shiori said, and she pulled out her phone. "I'll mark it down. I was thinking we could all meet up at the pond at about one . . ."

While Shiori and Kisugi began to hash out the specifics of the ice skating get-together, Yuugi turned to look out of the window again. In truth, while he wouldn't give puppy dog eyes and whine to get his way like Kisugi, Yuugi had to admit that both Shiori and Kisugi had a point when they said that Jounouchi was likely to agree if it was something Yuugi suggested. Even if ice skating wasn't really something Jounouchi was interested in before, he was always up to try new things, and he rarely said no to a challenge or new idea. It was just the type of person he was. Unless he had something against ice skating due to a previous misadventure, there was a good chance he'd be interested in going just for the sake of trying it out.

But even if Jounouchi was on board with the idea, _Yuugi_ wasn't. He wasn't sure if ice skating really counted as a sport outside of the Olympics, but even if it didn't, sports or sport-like games were never really his forte. Depending on the game he could sometimes make do; he had gotten better at laser tag over the years, especially with Honda giving him tips and pointers when it came to strategy and aiming. But games like soccer, basketball, and (Yuugi cringed to think about it) tetherball were still the last games he would ever volunteer to play, and they at least had the advantage of being _games._ Ice skating didn't even have that; it was just a physical activity out in the cold that required a lot more coordination than Yuugi thought he had. Of all the activities the snow and cold temperatures could be used for, Yuugi was pretty sure that _ice skating_ was at the bottom of his list.

So his best bet, then, was that Jounouchi already had plans for Saturday that Yuugi could join in on. Shiori wouldn't pressure Jounouchi to give up his plans, and if Yuugi was able to go along, that would give _him_ an excuse to ditch out as well. Not that he necessarily needed one, he knew; he could always just tell Shiori and Kisugi both that the last thing he wanted to spend Saturday doing was humiliating himself out on an icy pond. But although he considered it—although he was _tempted_ —Shiori was practically glowing with excitement as she set a calendar reminder on her phone, and Kisugi was all but bouncing in his seat as he texted both of his partners to let them know. As much as he didn't want to go ice skating, he didn't want to kill their good moods, either—at least, not without good reason.

All he needed was for Jounouchi to come through for him.

* * *

Given that it was one of his rare days off, Jounouchi was home when Yuugi returned to their shared apartment after his afternoon classes let out, seated on the sofa with his legs kicked out beneath the coffee table while some action movie or other played on the television. He looked up when Yuugi opened the door, and grinned as their eyes met.

"Welcome home," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi—despite the fact that the bottoms of his jeans were soaked through with snow and slush—smiled back.

"Thanks, glad to be home," he said.

Jounouchi sat up to swipe the remote off the television, and lowered the volume on the TV as he fell back against the sofa cushions. "How was school?"

"It was fine. Nothing other than the usual happened," Yuugi said, and he kicked off his boots by the door. There was no helping how his pants would drag snow all over the carpet, but at least this way there wouldn't be shoe prints to go along with it. "Except . . ."

"What?"

"Shiori-san asked if you wanted to go ice skating this weekend, down at the park," Yuugi said. Jounouchi blinked in surprise, giving Yuugi his full attention now, and—realizing how Jounouchi must have interpreted that sentence—Yuugi continued. "Both of us, actually. Well, all of us. Shiori-san and Ishimoto-kun, along with Kisugi-kun, Nimura-kun, and Ai-san. They're all going ice skating Saturday, and they wanted to know if we would go with them."

"Sure," Jounouchi said, and with a casual shrug dashed all of Yuugi's hopes that he would be busy or otherwise uninterested. "Sounds like fun. What time?"

"One o' clock," Yuugi said. "You really want to go?"

"Yeah. I like skating, and I don't have to go into work until six on Saturday, so why not?"

"You like skating?" Yuugi said, aghast, and Jounouchi nodded. "Since when?"

"Uh . . . since childhood, I guess. Since I was maybe six years old?" Jounouchi said, and he gave Yuugi a bemused look. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Yuugi said quickly. Jounouchi snorted, and sat up a little straighter on the couch.

"Yeah, okay. You look like I just steamrollered your puppy and then sent you a 'whoops, sorry' card, but no, nothing's wrong. Spill."

"It's really nothing. It's just . . ." Yuugi walked over to sit on the armrest of the chair by the window, and heaved a sigh as he did. "I don't . . . I don't know how to skate."

Jounouchi was quiet for only a second before he said, "Seriously? That's it?"

"Um, yeah," Yuugi said, and frowned when Jounouchi laughed. "What? It's not funny."

"It kind of is," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi's frown deepened. "C'mon, Yuugi, it's not that big of a deal. So you don't know how to skate. So what?"

"So I'm going to crack my head open on the ice on Saturday, and probably look like the biggest idiot out there when I do," Yuugi said, and Jounouchi rolled his eyes.

"You're not gonna crack your head open, and you're not gonna look like an idiot, either. Skating's easy. I'll teach you."

"I—what?" Yuugi had been about to point out that, yes, he _would_ crack his head open on the ice because he had no way to stop himself from falling and doing just that, but Jounouchi's assertion—as casual and yet certain as it was—took him off-guard. "You'll teach me?"

"Sure. Like I said, skating's easy, and you're a fast learner. Teaching you will be no problem. We'll get down there about an hour or so before everyone else, and by the time they show up you'll be skating like a pro." Jounouchi smiled, the expression confident and comforting all at once. "Deal?"

There was a part of Yuugi, a strong part, that was still insisting that ice skating was a bad idea, that agreeing to this would lead to nowhere but disaster, that he should call his grandpa and get himself a shift down at the game shop in order to get out of it. But there was something in Jounouchi's smile and in his tone that made Yuugi feel—made him _believe_ —that it really was as simple as Jounouchi was saying it was, and that he had nothing to worry about. So he smiled back.

"Deal," he said, and Jounouchi's smile seemed somehow warmer, even as he turned his attention back to the movie he had been watching.

For a second or two they sat there in silence, watching the plot progression of the movie, but with the ice skating matter solved Yuugi became more aware of the fact that he was still bundled up in his winter gear, the bottoms of his jeans soaked, his winter coat heavy with melted snow over the sweater he was wearing underneath it.

"I should change into some dry clothes," he said, as a little clump of snow fell off his coat sleeve and onto the carpet.

Jounouchi had looked over in time to see that, and as Yuugi grinned, he snorted a laugh and said, "Yeah, that would probably be a good move."

* * *

As much as Jounouchi's confidence in his teaching ability had made Yuugi believe that Saturday's ice skating excursion would be all right, when the day finally arrived, Yuugi knew only one thing for certain:

"This was a mistake."

As Jounouchi had planned, they got to the pond about an hour, give or take, before Shiori and the others did. Surprisingly, there was no one else there; the paths around the pond were deserted, and while Yuugi could see one or two people on the park paths in the distance, none of them so much as glanced in their direction. The ice over the surface of the pond looked as thick as ever, and by Saturday hardly any of the snow had started to melt. But even as Jounouchi easily skated across its surface, having laced up his skates and jumped on the ice as soon as they arrived, Yuugi couldn't help the anxious little thought in the back of his mind that maybe the ice _was_ melting, or that perhaps it would crack under their combined weight before either of them noticed.

Upon hearing Yuugi's claim, Jounouchi rolled his eyes and skated back to the bank of the pond where Yuugi was seated. Yuugi already had his own skates on and laced up, but he remained planted firmly in the snow, despite how it was starting to soak through his jeans.

"No it wasn't," Jounouchi said. "C'mon, you haven't even tried yet! Where's the Mutou Yuugi who never turns down a challenge, huh?"

"That's different," Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi raised an eyebrow, added, "Those are games. They're actually fun."

"And so is this, I swear. Here, give me your hands." Jounouchi extended both of his hands toward Yuugi, wiggling his fingers in invitation. Like Yuugi, Jounouchi was wearing gloves, but unlike Yuugi he'd only bothered to pull on a dark green hoodie over his t-shirt. How Jounouchi managed to stay warm in only a hoodie and jeans despite the fact that there was snow on the ground was a mystery to Yuugi. "I'll help you, just trust me."

"That's redundant," Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi gave him a confused look he said, "You don't have to tell me to trust you. Of course I do. I always have."

Jounouchi grinned, and curled his fingers in a _come on_ motion, a little more insistently than before. "Then what are you waiting for?"

Whether he trusted Jounouchi or not (and he did, with his life, and always would), Yuugi still felt as though this was a bad idea. Nothing good could come of ice skating, he was sure of it. But Jounouchi had offered to teach him, and was holding out both hands to him, and as bad of an idea as ice skating might have been—as much as Yuugi would have much rather stayed home and played a co-op game with Jounouchi instead—Yuugi couldn't say no to that. So he reached up and allowed Jounouchi to pull him to his feet, and then out onto the ice.

"There, you see?" Jounouchi said. "Nice and steady, just take it easy . . ."

He didn't release Yuugi's hands as they made their way onto the ice ice, and for that, Yuugi was grateful. In twenty-one years Yuugi had never so much as strapped on a pair of ice skates, and the second he was actually _standing_ on them he could see why. The thin blade of metal fastened to the bottom of the skate was just as hard to stand and balance on as Yuugi had thought it would be, and while part of him reasoned that it could be his nerves making the entire situation worse, he could have sworn that he could feel the little blades digging into the soles of his feet. He held Jounouchi's hands a little tighter as Jounouchi pulled him out toward the center of the pond, his eyes glued to their feet—to Jounouchi's backwards glide, and his own clumsy, jerky steps as he tried to follow—as they moved.

"You don't want to stomp like that," Jounouchi said after a moment, and Yuugi tore his eyes away from their skates to frown at Jounouchi. For whatever reason, now that he wasn't looking at what they were doing, Yuugi thought his legs felt a little wobblier, a little less steady.

"I'm not _stomping_ ," Yuugi said, though he knew full well he was.

"Okay, you don't want to _walk_ like that, then," Jounouchi said, but he smiled, as if he knew that Yuugi knew that he was, in fact, stomping. Yuugi figured that was probably the case. "Skating's not like walking, it's like . . . you want to push yourself across the ice, kind of. You want your skates to slide."

"That's what I'm doing," Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi gave him a _yeah, okay_ look, he said, "Or what I'm trying to do, anyway."

"You're lifting your legs too much. Here, watch me. See what I'm doing?" Yuugi looked back down at their feet, at how the blades of Jounouchi's skates moved seamlessly over the ice, hardly making a sound in contrast to the clacking of Yuugi's every time he took a step. "You want to do it like that, except forward instead of backward. Just kinda push yourself forward."

"Right," Yuugi said, but something in his tone or expression must have told Jounouchi that he had no idea how to go about doing that, because Jounouchi pursed his lips for a second before he said:

"Here, how about this: I'll let you go for a second, and you—"

"I can't—!"

"You won't move!" Jounouchi said, and true to his word he stopped them in the middle of the pond, firmly holding Yuugi's hands until they were both standing on the ice. "Just stand here and watch me for a second, all right? You can see what I do and then copy it."

Yuugi frowned, dubious, but nodded. Standing on the ice wasn't so bad, he supposed, even if the blades of his skates still felt paper thin and somehow flimsy, even if he could feel his own sense of balance swaying, threatening to betray him and send him careening onto the ice. Jounouchi slowly released Yuugi's hands and then began to skate backwards again, maintaining eye contact with Yuugi for a few seconds before he turned to skate a graceful lap toward the other end of the pond.

And it was kind of weird, Yuugi thought, how graceful Jounouchi looked. Jounouchi wasn't really a _clumsy_ person by nature, at least not more than any other person was, but although he walked with loping strides, although he was definitely lean and agile, Yuugi had never really thought of him as graceful before. But he was now, his every movement smooth and so naturally coordinated. He made it look so _easy_ , so _simple_ , as if he only had to invest a modicum of effort into skating, and maybe not even that. It was as if the skates were a part of him, as if they didn't even exist or he had never moved without them, and Yuugi was so caught up in studying this that he hardly noticed when Jounouchi skated back to him, stopping just out of arm's reach.

"See?" Jounouchi said. "Easy. Now, do what I just did and skate to me."

Yuugi glanced down at his skates, and that little movement was enough to cause his left foot to slip a bit on the ice, which in turn made his heart jump to his throat as he threw his arms out for balance. "I don't think—"

"Yuugi, trust me and trust yourself. You can do this!" Jounouchi said, and he held out his hands again, his arms bent at his elbows. "Come on, just skate to me!"

Yuugi pinched his tongue between his teeth, his common sense screaming at him not to do it. Despite how much attention he had given Jounouchi's smooth, effortless movements, he really wasn't sure how to go about copying it. This wasn't like a game, where there was a certain combination of button presses to win, or clearly established outcomes depending on a dice roll or card flip. It wasn't something he could think his way through, but something he just had to _do_. And that was the problem, Yuugi thought. Skating wasn't a puzzle to be solved. It was an action to be taken.

But he had to try. He had never gotten anywhere in life by hesitating, by refusing to act, and he knew that. And if he fell, well . . . Jounouchi was right there, and he trusted Jounouchi. Jounouchi would catch him, he was sure of it.

Yuugi took a deep breath, and—reminding himself that skating wasn't walking, that it was _sliding_ and he needed to push forward rather than _stomp_ —Yuugi started forward, the blade of his skate scraping across the ice, displacing the little loose powder that had accumulated on the surface.

"There, see?" Jounouchi said, and Yuugi looked up to see that Jounouchi was grinning at him. "It's not so hard, right?"

Yuugi managed a shaky smile. "Yeah, I guess it's not so bad." Putting one foot forward wasn't so bad, anyway, and if he could do it with one foot, he could probably do it with the other.

That was what he thought, anyway.

As he lost momentum with his first foot, Yuugi tried to push forward with his second. He realized his mistakes—two of them, working in tandem—a second too late. The first was that he took too much of a step forward in an attempt to skate more quickly, once again treating his skates like shoes instead of the death blades strapped to shoes they actually were. The second was that, in doing this, he didn't put as much of his hips into the movement as he should have. That was part of why Jounouchi was so graceful, Yuugi thought. It wasn't like walking, skating wasn't in the knees, not really; it was all in the hips.

But realizing that a second too late didn't do him any good. The blade of Yuugi's skate slid across the ice with far more speed than he was prepared for, and the sudden slide not only lifted his foot clear off the ice, but tipped him backwards; Yuugi flailed his arms out in an attempt to catch himself, windmilling them as he tried to bring himself forward again, and succeeded just in time for Jounouchi to dart forward in an attempt to catch him. Jounouchi, too, succeeded; but in Yuugi's attempt to right himself he tried to catch his balance with his other foot, which—due to Jounouchi's quick save—resulted in his foot colliding with Jounouchi's ankle. Jounouchi hissed a swear between clenched teeth and stumbled, and his stumble—combined with Yuugi trying to pull back so he didn't accidentally kick Jounouchi again—caused his ankle to get hooked around Yuugi's. This sent them crashing down onto the ice in a heap, and due to the way Jounouchi grabbed Yuugi and spun them around as they fell, Yuugi ended up sprawled across Jounouchi's chest while Jounouchi hit the ice back-first.

For a moment, they were both still. Yuugi, for his part, didn't move because he was listening for the sound of splintering ice, waiting to feel the frozen pond give way to glacial water beneath them. But when it didn't, and the only sound was the wind and distant voices, he hastily scrambled off Jounouchi to kneel beside him instead.

"Jounouchi-kun, are you okay?" he asked. Jounouchi sighed, his face twisted into a grimace, but nodded as he pushed himself up on his forearms.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jounouchi grunted. "Nothing bruised except my pride and maybe my ass. What about you? You okay?"

"Yeah. You did a pretty good job of breaking my fall," Yuugi said. Jounouchi grinned at him, but Yuugi didn't return it. "Are you sure you're okay? You hit the ice pretty hard. You didn't hit your head or anything, did you?"

"Nah. And even if I did, I'm so tough we both know I'd do way more damage to the ice than it would do to me," Jounouchi said. His tone was light, and it was clear he was trying to make a joke out of it, but perhaps due to the look on Yuugi's face, he quickly became more sincere. "Seriously, Yuugi, I'm fine. Honda and I did way worse to each other playing ice hockey as kids. Always on accident, but still."

"You played ice hockey with Honda-kun?"

"Yeah, back in middle school. Then again, maybe it's not really _hockey_ if it's just two dumb kids knocking a puck around, but it's the thought that counts." Jounouchi pushed himself to his feet before he extended a hand to Yuugi, who took it so Jounouchi could pull him up off the ice. "Usually it ended up just being a contest to see which one of us could check the other harder on top of scoring more goals, but hey, we had fun, so it's whatever."

"Sounds like it," Yuugi said, because even though it wasn't exactly his ideal way to spend an afternoon, from what little he knew of Jounouchi's time in middle school, days spent playing "hockey" with Honda definitely sounded like some of the better ones.

Jounouchi sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah. Anyway, Yuugi, I'm sorry. I figured maybe you could just copy me and figure things out from there, but that . . . was probably a bit of an extreme to jump to considering you've never really done this before. Sorry I made us wipe out."

"I'm the one that tripped you, and you broke my fall," Yuugi said.

Jounouchi shrugged. "Yeah, but you wouldn't've tripped me if I hadn't tried to make you skate solo when you're just starting out."

"So we're even, then," Yuugi said, and although Jounouchi gave him a skeptical look, he said, "So let's just keep trying, okay? Shiori-san and the others will probably be here soon. I think we've been here for about twenty minutes at this point."

It took a second, but Jounouchi smiled. "Yeah. Let's keep trying. Here, keep a hold of my hand—just one, this time. That might make it easier for you to follow what I do."

Yuugi nodded, and twined his fingers with Jounouchi's, who held his hand in a reassuring, tight grip. "Right. Lead the way, Jounouchi-kun."

It was a little easier this way, as Jounouchi had reasoned. With Jounouchi skating forward, rather than backward, it made it easier for Yuugi to try and copy his movements. By the time most of their hour had passed, Yuugi could skate forward on his own, even if he was still as wobbly on his skates as a newborn deer was on its feet. Skating backward was still out of the question, and turns were a lot more tricky; every time Yuugi tried to turn he either didn't turn enough and crashed into the bank of the pond, or tried to turn too much and almost wiped out on the ice (almost, but not quite, because Jounouchi was always there to catch him, thankfully without wiping out himself).

"I really think you're getting the hang of it, Yuugi," Jounouchi said, and he took Yuugi's hand again to guide him around the curve of the pond. He smiled, and Yuugi smiled back. "See? Skating's not so bad, right?"

"No, it's not so bad," Yuugi admitted, and Jounouchi's grin widened. "So long as I can stop crashing into the side of the pond, anyway."

"Well, that's what I'm here for. I can help you out with that." He looked up as they started forward across the pond again, and nodded his head toward the opposite bank. "Hey, looks like Shiori and the others are here."

Yuugi looked up as well, and saw that Jounouchi was right. Shiori was jogging up to the pond, her ice skates in one hand as her other hand gripped Naoya's (who, to Yuugi's complete lack of surprise, was using a large pair of headphones as earmuffs). Kisugi was right behind them, one arm linked with his boyfriend's while his other arm was linked with his girlfriend's. Yuugi couldn't help but snort a laugh. Kisugi had one love on each arm, just like he had promised.

"You ready to skate over?" Jounouchi asked, and he lifted up their joined hands to show what he meant. Yuugi considered it, glancing over at the pond bank, where his friends had started kicking off their shoes to pull their ice skates on instead.

"Yeah," he said, but even as he said it he realized that they had skated just far enough that they would need to turn, and as Jounouchi released his hand, Yuugi wobbled on his skates. "Except maybe—!"

His words cut off in a yelp as he slipped and careened forward, but once more Jounouchi caught his hand, holding him steady until he regained his balance. Jounouchi laughed, but it wasn't at all unkind, and despite what had to be his fifteenth near-spill, Yuugi laughed a little as well.

"Maybe not so much with the turns," Yuugi said, and Jounouchi grinned, swinging their linked hands between them as he guided him around to the gathered group.

"Yeah, no worries," Jounouchi said. "I've gotcha."


End file.
